Chasing Euphoria

Chapter Thirty Nine

Cassie

I unraveled myself out of Landon's arms and sat up. He frowned at me, reaching out again in a poor attempt to pull me back.

By this point, we were both utterly drenched and threw the umbrella onto the floor. It was getting in our way before, at least it was keeping us dry. Not so much anymore.

Again, he moved his arms towards me and instead of completely letting myself go from him, I held his hands between mine.

"What do you mean by no more secrets?" He asked, not trying again to hug me.

Knowing I was about to share things I never told anyone, I had to keep to myself as much as possible. However, I didn't want him to think that I was pushing him away again. Compromising. First step to success.

"Since we met, you had so many questions that you never dared to ask. I could tell. I want to be honest with you. No questions are going to be unanswered." I said. Opening up was one thing, allowing him to see every single part of me was another. In the end, it would be worth it.

"Coco, it doesn't matter to me if you aren't ready to talk." He stated.

"I am ready. Whatever is important to you is important to me."

Landon was too much of a good person to pry into my personal life. No matter how much he craved to know, no matter how much it killed him, he would never overstep the boundaries. One of the many things I admired about him. Under no circumstances would he want me to feel uncomfortable around him. So far, he was very successful.

"Then I'm here to listen." His hands removed themselves from mine and I missed the touch, knowing why he did it.

If he was too close during this, I would feel suffocated and trapped. I didn't want to lose it when it was important for him to know.

"My father never wanted me. He never wanted kids at all, they were a burden, another thing to take care of. My Mom on the other hand always wanted to have at least two children. So they came to an understanding and adopted me." I explained.

Starting from the beginning was the best way, even if he already knew certain parts of the story, I would go over it all again for more clarity.

So I continued. "He loved her more than anything else in the world, and therefore he wanted to make her happy. Still, she was limited to only one. Regardless, I was a dream come true for her. Time went on and things weren't too bad until my father became so obsessed with the business. In the beginning, he would take us away with him, then after a while, he stopped."

Mom and I eventually were left on our own and I didn't understand why he was gone so much. She always claimed he had to go to benefit the business and therefore would help our lives. Knowing what I know now, he was probably off betraying my mother. Pierce Estates wasn't international, somehow he was on trips to Europe a lot.

He wasn't faithful, Mom would never admit it to me.

Whenever he would return from his visits, he was always in a bad mood. Always yelling, nothing made him happy anymore. Mom did as best as she could to keep him somewhat okay, in the end it stopped working. Every night he would be raising his voice, thinking I'm asleep and couldn't hear. She always told me to never go down the stairs when I heard it. The older I got, the braver I was and I did go down to make sure she was okay.

Landon listened intently whilst I carried on with the story. Though I wasn't looking at him, I could feel his eyes on me like a guardian angel.

I never saw him lay a hand on her and no marks were ever present from what I knew of. Another thing that wouldn't surprise me if I was wrong about.